Breguet Classique

Watch Snob: Is The Breguet Classique Truly Legitimate?

Question From A Watch Knob

Watch Snob!You've been stripped of all your assets. Houses, gone; cars, gone; and perhaps most devastatingly, your entire watch collection — gone. You now have to slum it with the 99%-ers.Now, my question is, what would someone with your impeccable taste and focus on pedigree and craftsmanship deal with a $1,000-ish budget for a wrist watch?

Am I also allowed to ask what you'd choose for yourself if your budget was now $3,000, max? Love your columns, by the way. They've been a complete game-changer for me.Kind regards,Ryan

Never mind what I’d do if stripped of all my assets; that’s an unnecessary rhetorical flourish. I must point out that your question is (sigh) yet again, whether there’s anything worth looking at under $1,000/$3,000, and the answer is: Of course there is, at both price points. Under $1,000, there are a plethora of worthy vintage watches too numerous to mention, and you can acquire one with enough left over for a decent service (which, make no mistake, you must factor into your budget.) Whether you have the wherewithal to find such a vintage watch is not something I can be bothered to worry about. For $3,000? Frankly, I’d still go vintage, and at that point there are a cornucopia of truly attractive choices. (A nice IWC calibre 89, anyone?)

At either price point, though, the most interesting choices are in vintage pocket watches, where you can get anything from beautiful Longines, Omega, American Howard, Cartier, or even Audemars Piguet and have something of real horological and historical interest, which is what I would do. You could take the same money and spend it on any one of hundreds of pieces of generic modern junk, and most people would, but you asked what the Snob would do.